Decouple

The Tohoku earthquake which led to the Fukushima accident was the 4th most powerful earthquake in the world since modern measurement and record keeping began in 1900. This earthquake was so powerful that it redistributed earth’s mass sufficiently to shift the earth’s figure axis by 17cm and shorten our days by 1.8 microseconds. There’s a tendency in the West to forget about the earthquake in our fascination with the nuclear accident in Fukushima. Paul Blustein is a former Rhodes scholar, journalist and writer who has written about economic issues for more than 40 years and lives in Kamakura Japan with his family where he experienced the earthquake and its aftermath. Paul was an early voice of reason dispelling some of the worst radiation fear mongering at the time. He has made a point of supporting the farmers of Fukushima by eating and promoting produce from the prefecture where safe radiation limits are set at 1/10 those of Europe.  In this episode we discuss the lived experience of the earthquake and its aftermath as well as the enormous damage caused by the failure of NRC chairman Gregory Jackzo to correct the record on a modelling error he publisized. This led to suspicion that the Japanese government was suprressing the seriousness of the accident and significantly eroded public trust and exagerated panic.  https://www.patreon.com/decouple?fan_landing=true

The conference of the parties (COP) is where almost every nation on earth, each with an equal vote, gathers to talk climate change and attempt to hammer out a consensus on the way forward. So far nuclear has been on the fringes of policy discussions. Activists like Arun Khuttan are working to change that through an initiative called Net Zero Needs Nuclear. Delayed due to COVID, COP 26 promises to be interesting with countries that were previously reluctant to make climate committments changing course. The Biden administration has rejoined the Paris Agreement and China has signalled goals of Net Zero by 2060 which includes a massive scaling up of their nuclear sector. Arun and I talk shop on COP, Nuclear advocacy strategy and the Net Zero for Nuclear campaign. Arun Khuttan is a chemical and nuclear engineer who is an active advocate for nuclear and is leading the UK Young Generation in nuclear's activities towards COP 26 this year. For more information about the campaign https://www.netzeroneedsnuclear.com/get-involved

A deep dive into Bill Gates most recent book "How to prevent a Climate Disaster" with Leigh Phillips. Bill Gates has burst onto the climate scene and is generating a lot of press. Will he grow to monopolize the debate as he has with Global health where it has been said that “you can’t cough, scratch your head or sneeze in public health without coming to the Gates Foundation.” In this entertaining read Gate's provides an accessible birds eye view of the problems and scale of climate change. He draws attention to hard to decarbonize sectors like Agriculture, Cement and Steel and introduces the concept of the "Green Premium" as a metric to identify decarbonization innovation priorities.  Gates pours cold water on the common use of Moore's law as a model for rosey energy sector modelling. He points to the importance of marrying mitigation to adaptation in order for those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change to have the best chances to endure it.  Leigh and I talk agriculture, energy, innovation and most importantly the politics including taxation that can enable the state investment in R&D and deployment that Gates calls for and yet has resisted many times as a member of the billionaire class.  Leigh Phillips is a science writer and political journalist whose work has appeared in Nature, Science, the Guardian, and Jacobin. His areas of specialization include climate change, energy systems, the earth system, and microbiology. Leigh is the author of 2 books, The People's Republic of Walmart and Austerity Ecology.

The UK has made a legally binding commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. Boris Johnson recently released a 10-point green plan, which included the claim that all UK households will be powered by wind energy by 2030. The UK Committee on Climate Change has recommended a big expansion of wind and solar but says that up to 40% of electricity in 2050 will need to be firm, low carbon...which means either gas or biomass with carbon capture, or else nuclear. They've also suggested electricity demand will double from now to 2050. While today 18% of UK electricity is supplied by nuclear, almost all of this will disappear by 2030 as the advanced gas reactor fleet is retired this decade. Indeed, of today's electricity generation, none will be on the grid in 2050 except possibly Sizewell B. Gas and wind are growing to dominate the grid with an unhealthy serving of biomass (fuelled by wood pellets imported from the US). 120 GW each of wind and solar are being contemplated to meet climate goals but will result in 500 sq miles of solar farms needing to be built in the densely populated "sunny" south of England and 24,000 5MW offshore wind turbines. The UK enjoys bipartisan support for nuclear power but has committed to private financing with its only new nuclear build financed with a 9% interest rate. Cost remains a serious concern. As Tim Stone, chairman of the UK NIA, has said: "Only two numbers matter in nuclear construction: capital cost and the cost of capital.' Some institutional investors are resportedly shunning the proposed Sizewell C nuclear project, citing uncertainty over environmental, social and corporate governance concerns. However, the UK government is now in negotiations with EDF to find a financing model that reduces the cost of finance and leads to a better deal for consumers. This is likely to involve more government support than previous projects. I am joined by David Watson, a nuclear safety engineer from the UK, to discuss this and more. David has over 10 years' experience in consulting supporting the operation, construction and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Generation Atomic blog recently started an instagram channel called atomic trends, which he refers to as the "nuclear dream factory".

The Philippines exports its people to earn foreign exchange to, amongst other things, pay for imported fossil fuels to power the country. Families are broken up, parents absent for years at a time, and many of the brightest Filipino minds leave the country causing a significant brain drain. While its neighbours have experienced steady economic growth and improvement in standards of living, the Philippines has stagnated, burdened by high energy prices and unreliable power that has deindustrialized the country and discourages foreign investment and development. Nuclear energy due to its low fuel and transporation costs and the ability to stockpile years of fuel onsite has the potential to deliver the energy security and the reliable power needed for economic development at an affordable cost and prevent the hemorrhaging of so many Filipino's from their country and families. It can also address the water and air pollution caused by coal ash which has significant impacts on the health of Filipinos.  What's most surprising is that there is a nuclear plant, Bataan, that was built in the 1980's that was 100% complete and ready for fuel loading but never actually brought online. It has stood idle for 36 years while the Filipino grid has been strained and electricity prices have been some of the highest in the world due to fossil fuel and shipping price volatility.  I am joined by Mark Cojuangco, a former Representative of 5th District of Pangasinan and the vice-chairman of Committee on Appropriations. He is the author of the House Bill 04631 that sought the immediate re-commissioning and commercial operation of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.

Due to the global geopolitics of the 1940's Canada became the unlikely centre for the world's second largest nuclear research infrastructure at the end of World War II. Devoting itself to the peaceful use of the atom It went on to develop a unique power reactor design, the CANDU, based on the use of heavy water to avoid the need for uranium enrichment and pressure tubes to get around the need for a heavy forging industry for reactor vessels. These features make the CANDU ideal for export and technology transfer to less developed countries with industrial capacity resembling that of Canada back in the 1960's. CANDU reactors provide 61% of the power for the Ontario grid, the largest province in Canada, making it one of the cleanest electricity grids on earth and allowing for the complete phaseout of coal. CANDU has been exported internationally and delivered on budget and on time in China, South Korea and Romania. Alongside it's high grade uranium deposits which are the richest in the world, Canada has a unique ability to foster a made in Canada reponse to climate change. It can export its ultra low carbon technology to address its climate debt by helping developing countries to leapfrog fossil fuels on their way to ultra low carbon energy.  CANDU meets many of the criteria for an advanced reactor design with passive safety elements, modular design, and the ability to use nuclear waste as fuel. Why then is CANDU languishing especially in a country where the supply chain is 95% in country?  Dr. Jeremy Whitlock former president of the Canadian Nuclear Society and Section Head of the Dept of Safegaurds at the IAEA walks us through this incredible history. He is the brains behind nuclearfaq a treasure trove on the history of nuclear energy in Canada. http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/

The Texan grid AKA the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is a house of cards. It is an energy only, deregulated market which does not reward keeping spare generation capacity on board and keeps a razor thin cushion to buffer against unpredictable surges in demand. It has isolated its grid from the rest of the conry in order to avoid federal reguation. Texas has made the decision to invest heavily in wind and natural gas, pairing an unpredictable and intermittent energy source with a dispatchable source that relies on just in time delivery of its fuel.  In the clutches of a polar vortex which has covered wind turbines in ice, frozen natural gas infrastructure and driven up demand for gas for both home heating and electricity ERCOT is strained to the breaking point with rolling blackouts affecting millions in this freezing weather. Welcome back for another Decouple short. We are joined by energy analyst Mark Nelson, the managing director of the Radiant Energy Fund to understand this breaking news out of Texas. 

While wealthy countries in the West are engaged in an energy transition obstensibly away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy the developing world is emerging from energy poverty largely through the use of fossil fuels. Four million people die every year as a consequence of indoor air pollution from cooking using biomass in poorly ventilated homes. This is more lives lost year after year, every year than COVID in 2020 and more than Malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. The transition away from biomass towards sources like liquid petroleum gas cooking fuels is an undeniable global health benefit.  How do we balance the immediate needs of people to exit energy poverty with the fossil fuel driven threat of climate change that looms on the horizon. What are the consequences of market interventions and economic planning when policy makers struggle with basic energy literacy? Dr Scott Tinker is a geologist, educator, energy expert and documentary filmmaker. He is the bureau of economic geology at the University of Texas and the chairman of the Switch Energy Alliance which aims to inspire an energy educated future through film.

Just as the political spectrum is divided between left and right, thinking on environmental problem solving is similarly split into two rival camps exemplified by the archetypes of the Wizard and the Prophet. Award winning science writer Charles Mann explores these archetypes as personified by the father of the Green Revolution, Norman Borlaug and the intellectual godfather of the environmental movement, William Vogt.  Crudely put wizards are foremost humanists who eschew limits believeing that our growing population and appetites can be accommodated by the wise application of decoupling technology. Prophets are foremost environmentalists who believe that carrying capacity is limited and that humans must remain within natural energy flows or risk ecosystem and civilizational collapse.  Understanding the origins of one's opponents ideological beliefs and values goes a long way to depersonalizing a sometimes ugly debate and perhaps finding a small patch of common ground.  Prophets who have contributed some impressive advances in natural resource stewardship such as water conservation must wrestle with an ugly history of malthusian ideas which at their worst have justified horrific campaigns of coercive population control. Despite the success of technofixes that fed billions and averted famines wizards must temper their scientific rationalism with a sociologic understanding of the dark sides of modernization such as enclosures of the commons.  This conversation challenged my cognitive biases more then I was expecting. I hope it does the same for you.  

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. When environmental NGO's morph into fossil fuel companies something is very wrong with environmentalism. The company Greenpeace NRG sells a product they label as ProWindGas made of 99% fossil methane and less than 1% hydrogen from water electrolysis.  "Our long-term goal is to increase the proportion of wind. Since the production of renewable hydrogen is still comparatively expensive today and we want to keep our gas price competitive, we can only increase the hydrogen share slowly..." While aiming to increase the share of hydrogen from wind over time, the amount of green hydrogen in Greenpeace NRG's Pro Wind Gas has actually decreased and remains at or below 1%.  Welcome to our inaugaral "Decouple Short" episode. A 15 min or less episode that compliments our long form interviews by bringing you expanded coverage and breaking climate and environmental news.